Comments on: Who is a journalist?http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html
Brain candy for Happy MutantsMon, 15 Sep 2014 23:11:17 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: Betsy_Bhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1299759
Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:59:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1299759Wrong. Journalists (including those anointed with official press passes) are “running into problems” because police are failing to differentiate between observing and participating. Here’s a video of New York Times photographer Robert Stolarik attempting to cover the D12 action in NYC and nearly getting arrested. Incident starts around 2:00.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oj_OEV-a3no
]]>By: digi_owlhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1298739
Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:35:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1298739In the same way as copyright was easy when copying involved big bulky mechanical machines, journalists where easy to separate out as they had to be employed by owners of said big bulky mechanical machines. As such, providing someone with press freedoms was easy, as there was few of them to keep track off. But now anyone with a computer and time to write and/or talk, can be a journalist of equal or higher readership to a old school newspaper. Suddenly the number of journalists has exploded.
]]>By: GPhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1296995
Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:31:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1296995Like I said: perhaps it was never true.
]]>By: pbrpunx14http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1296732
Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:17:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1296732“coutless other semi-citizen-journalists out there ”

with our constantly increasing level of technology and decline in formerly-inalienable rights, one day soon we’ll all be semi-citizen journalists.

]]>By: Brainsporehttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1296022
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:36:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1296022See, that is just the kind of nuanced reaction that demonstrates why you’re just not cut out for journalism.
]]>By: GPhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295814
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:56:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295814Why do journalists get special treatment as compared to regular people? I think it’s because journalists used to be neutral observers, there to report the actual, factual events. Even if they were opinionated, they could once be trusted not to lie or distort the facts (too much). In a sense, their protection wasn’t just a legal one, but also a reputation of honesty and integrity: as a government, by arresting or hindering a journalist you demonstrated to the public that you had something to hide.

That reputation has been shattered. Perhaps because it was never true. For the first cracks journalists have only themselves to blame. Commercialisation, declining circulation rates, the advent of the internet and indeed citizen journalism did the rest.

There are very few real journalists left, in the sense of (imperfect) objective observers. Certainly, a leftist comedian with a podcast doesn’t qualify. And sure, neither does a Fox news reporter. But that’s exactly the problem with Fox. You and I may not believe they do neutral and objective reporting. But their AUDIENCE does. So Fox can still envoke that “what do you have to hide / the people have a right to know” outrage amongst their audience which may cause damage to whoever hinders Fox in their ‘reporting’.

I don’t think John Knefel’s arrest packs that same punch. I think that’s why he got arrested. And I think that’s why he and the coutless other semi-citizen-journalists out there will never enjoy the protection of someone with access to a mass audience. And perhaps that’s fair. Perhaps, in order to be considered a journalist, you need an audience that significantly exceeds an average number of Facebook friends. And perhaps, in order to get there, you can try reporting the facts as honestly and objectively as you can.

If only because the competition seems to be leaving that niche wide open.

]]>By: hyperlocavorehttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295687
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:23:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295687How about the history of the broadsheet and independent critics of the government…bloggers are closer to what the protections in the Constitution were aimed at…critics of the Government no matter how small… we to have a VOICE.
There are terrible “journalist” who have all the “training” and none of the ethics- who are themselves targeting OWS for slimming innuendo day in day out on the “news”. It seems to me that in many cases none of that training made an impression. Especially the ethics part.

Going back to defending independent journalists who are getting roughed up by the police, pointing your investigative rigor towards that is probably better time spent.

]]>By: hyperlocavorehttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295683
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:16:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295683the system is unlikely to pay it’s critics. – the Constitution however clearly protects them…. read up on who and what “the press” was at the time of the Founders… It was not a corporate affair.
]]>By: hyperlocavorehttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295681
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:12:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295681When the Constition was written broadsheet hustlers – indy writers WERE the press. The “mainstream” press is now corporate owned. The broadsheet hustlers are bloggers, vloggers and indy web papers.

We don’t need no stinking press pass. We have the Constitution of the United States which was meant to protect independent critics of government …no matter how small their print run.

]]>By: spockohttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295645
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:05:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295645Thanks for replying Maggie. I actually have a couple of specific cases I’m thinking about. One is James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, whose combined intentional acts of activism were given the “they are journalists because they say they are” benefit of the doubt. Because it was given to them, good people lost their jobs and an organization was destroyed. What recourse do the people have when non-journalists like them get the benefits of journalists?

Recently I have found a Fox employee doing the same thing to an organization that had ties to ACORN. If Fox wasn’t part of “the media or the press” their actions could be seen for what they are, hit pieces by the media arm of the republican party against an organization that they feel can hurt Republicans.

For me to expose them can be seen as partisian sour grapes. What is needed is for actual journalists to call them out, but it’s hard to get media watchers like “On the Media” to call out Fox for non-journalism. The more likely scenario is for them to rush to the aid of Fox. Like some of the commenters above, many assume everyone knows Fox isn’t really a provider of journalism and don’t attempt to do anything about it. . I think that is a mistake.

Personally I’m looking at ways that these non-journalist acts of destruction can be stopped, or barring that, to arrange for them to have consequences.

]]>By: kargerhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295636
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:55:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295636I suspect that the key meaning of “are you a journalist” from the law enforcement perspective is “is there some organization that is taking responsibility for your conduct, and that can be punished if you misbehave?”. An organization doesn’t need to be arrested because you know where to find them later. An individual, even one calling themselves a journalist, could disappear after claiming journalistic privilege, which frees them from any constraints on their actions.

I am staying neutral on what actions by individuals are appropriate; simply arguing that a key issue here is accountability.

I am equally concerned about the professionals who want the privileges and not the responsibilities. And I think this is part of what makes this such a grey issue. Because it’s really about who you can trust. And there’s no clear way of figuring that out without following an individual’s coverage (and checking up on them) over a long period of time. Which most of us don’t have time to do.

Maybe there never was a golden age where that job of figuring out who to trust was easier. But I feel like it used to SEEM easier, before intentionally biased infotainment and before the Internet. One is bad, the other is generally good. They both muddy the water like crazy.

]]>By: Maggie Koerth-Bakerhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295593
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:42:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295593This is something I worry about a lot, too, Justin. It certainly doesn’t invalidate the idea of citizen journalism. Which I think is valuable. But we can’t go around pretending that citizen journalists innately have better coverage or that they aren’t out to manipulate, any more than we can assume those things about professional journalists.

Good journalism is good journalism. Bad journalism is bad journalism. And both happen at all levels of the spectrum.

]]>By: Maggie Koerth-Bakerhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295592
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:38:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295592I have long thought that there is some good and some bad to an idea like this. I can talk myself into it or out of it, depending on the day. You both basically sum up my position pretty well.
]]>By: Maggie Koerth-Bakerhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295587
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:33:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295587No. My position is that the approved coursework happens to teach you really valuable things about your rights and responsibilities as a public communicator. At the very least, you come away from it asking yourself questions and considering issues you might not otherwise notice … to your own detriment.

In an age where everybody can do, to a certain extent, what journalists do, maybe it makes a lot of sense to teach these valuable lessons to everybody. To my mind, that’s not gatekeeping at all. That would be helping people protect themselves as public communicators and do a better job of being public communicators.

I don’t think you need a college degree to be a journalist. Frankly, the idea that you go to college to be a journalist is pretty new. This used to be a trade that you learned on the job. Journalism school is just a way of getting a lot of the really valuable stuff from that training faster. I don’t think journalism school is bad. I don’t think it’s necessary either.

But I do tend to think that learning some of the stuff we learn in journalism school IS necessary. Particularly because this is stuff that is, to put it in a sociology context, very much about learning to see our own privilege as public voices and make sure we don’t abuse that privilege. However you learn it, I don’t care. But I tend to think that you ought to learn it if you’re going to call yourself a journalist.

]]>By: Bearpaw01http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295540
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:39:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295540Compare that to the risks involved in leaving the identification of “real” journalists in the hands of those who benefit from controlling access to information.
]]>By: Bearpaw01http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295535
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:30:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295535Maybe you should call for a blogger ethics panel. That’s always good for a laugh.
]]>By: twencyhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295521
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:18:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295521“The First Amendment right to gather news is, as the Court has often noted, not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public’s right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press. ”

]]>By: Antinous / Moderatorhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295519
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:15:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295519Please don’t use URL shorteners and please don’t enclose URLs in parentheses. You hurt the internet’s feelings.
]]>By: jcstearnshttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295502
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:57:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295502These are important and challenging questions that I have been grappling with as I have been monitoring journalist arrests at OWS events for the past almost three months. (That list is here: http://storify.com/jcstearns/tracking-journalist-arrests-during-the-occupy-prot ). I outline some of my judgement calls in this post here ( http://stearns.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/trust-and-verify-how-i-curate-my-list-of-journalist-arrests/ ), which explains how I fact check content from social media and confirm journalist arrests.

For my purposes, and given the crazy broken credentialing system in most cities, I decided early on that I wasn’t going to quibble about who is a journalist, and who isn’t. My goal was to account for anyone who was clearly committing acts of journalism when they were arrested. However, I also recognize that to hold police and city officials accountable for these arrests, those being arrested had to identify as journalists publicly – either with some form of credentials or verbally.

I am pretty swayed by Judge Kermit Lipez, when he ruled that videotaping police in public property was a protected act. In his decision he wrote:

“[C]hanges in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders [and] news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.”

(Thanks to Mathew Ingram at Giga Om who first pointed this quote out to me)

]]>By: Spockohttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295490
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:37:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295490I’m struggling this this issue right now. I see the desire for the definition of journalist to be expanded. For me this quote is essential;

“At the same time, we have to acknowledge that not everybody who uses the Internet is a journalist, because being a journalist comes with responsibilities not just protections. I’m pretty sure my Dad doesn’t want to hold his Facebook to the same standard that I use when writing here. ”

What if there is someone who has all the protections but doesn’t believe in the responsibilities? We joke about Fox News as not “journalists” and not really “the press” but what steps would you be willing to take to actively strip them of that title? For some people the way to fight Fox is to expand the defination of journalism so that other voices can be heard. But there are very few efforts to stop people and corporations from calling themselves journalists when they aren’t acting as journalists, but as a lobbying entity, an activist group or a PR firm. (When Fox set up and promoted the Tea Party they still got to cover the event as “the press” even when they were actually the producer of many of the events. Imagine if there was a Tea Party that the police had to take down, would Fox, the promoter of the event be on the side of the Cops or the Tea Partiers?)

And I’m not talking about stripping them of their “press” and journalist benefits for their right wing views, I’m specifically talking about what to do when they are not actually being responsible journalists. Why should they get the benefits of “the press” when they willfully repeat lies, don’t run corrections, reward (instead of fire) people for getting the story incorrect in favor of their side? Why are they still called journalists when they seek out and run information that is incorrect even after it has been confirmed incorrect? Why do they still get to be called “the press” when they seek out to destroy a person or group without even the fig leaf of “the other side said…”?
What if they used illegal means to obtain information for their stories, like hacking into phones?

Imagine that someone used the moniker of “journalist” and “the press” to simply push an agenda? They can get away with it because they know there are no consequences for not being a responsible journalist. If I’m a CIA agent and work for a paper to push an agenda of overthrowing the government in a South American country, am I also a journalist? Let’s ask Piper Perabo!

What do you do about an employee of a corporation who decides to go after an person or organization using their “journalism” moniker?
Let’s say that this person doesn’t accurately give the facts, doesn’t run the info from “the other side” and their intent is not to get to the truth but to the “truth” as they believe which supports their agenda (and the agenda of many of their readers/viewers/listeners.)

You would more accurately describe these people as lobbyists, PR people or activists. But they call themselves journalists, they also have deep pocket lawyers and marketing people who call them journalists.

If you don’t want to be responsible because it gets in the way of your agenda, all you have to do is call yourself a journalist and use a definition that is very broad. Next get your marketing team to have a slogan like “Fair and Balanced” to help define your corporation. Finally get a legal team that will protect you from any defamation cases as if you were a reporter from the New York Times looking for truth. When you have all this it means you you have amazing power with little or no check on your agenda. Any time someone challenges you, you bring up all your first amendment rights, your “journalist” credentials and point to broad definitions of what you do. If someone still thinks they have a case, they have to run the gauntlet of “actual malice” as in New York Times vs. Sullivan.

One of the brilliant moves of Roger Allies was changing the name of GOP-TV to Fox News and using the slogan of “Fair and Balanced”. The original name of Fox tells you a lot (as does the 300+ page document that Ailes wrote to outline his plan for this network which he suggested for Nixon’s White House.)

Since there are protections of “the press” written into the constitution, anytime they are challenged they can hide behind the constitution and wave their slogan. This is so much better than the protections that are offered to non-journalists.

If I believed in real journalism I might work to include citizen journalists in my definition, but I would also work to kick entities out of the definition when they aren’t acting responsible. I would not call them journalists, I would not call their corporations “the press”. I would call them activists, lobbyists or PR people.

And when it comes time for them to prove they are journalists, vs. lobbyiest and activists I would not rush to their defense like they are some guy with a camera at a protest, I would rush to the defense of actual journalists and journalism, which is what is under attack.

“You are not acting as a responsible press entity or journalist, you don’t get the benefits that we give to responsible press entities and journalists.”

]]>By: MarcVaderhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295377
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:59:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295377Thank you Maggie, thank you BB. Excellent post!
]]>By: Antinous / Moderatorhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295366
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:50:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295366Because it’s the wrong question. If Grandma runs out with her Kodak Instamatic and takes a picture of a cop beating someone for no reason, nobody’s claiming that she’s a journalist. But if she publishes it, she’s still acting as an agent of the free press in its Constitutional sense.
]]>By: CatskillJuliehttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295352
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:37:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295352Random bystanders should not be arrested either. Nor should peaceful participants in demonstrations. We are watching the criminalization of protected free speech and assembly, apparently only when it is directed at the wealth and power of the governing elite. Tea partiers can go to political events strapped with guns and threatening violence aganst elected politicians but peaceful demonstrators can’t sing and dance if they oppose Wall Street excess? This is really nuts.
]]>By: bwayshawnhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295339
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:24:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295339Why is this more confusing than you might thing?
]]>By: Justin Hamptonhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/who-is-a-journalist.html#comment-1295315
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:01:00 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=134065#comment-1295315Much of the criticism in the whole OWS/press discussion tends to get thrust on the cops, but it’s important to note that censorship cuts both ways. For instance, here in LA, I remember sitting in on a breakout session discussing tactics for the raid. The minute someone brought up a camera, immediately the bandanas went over people’s faces and the photographer was deluged by Occupiers attempting to shut him down. Flash forward three nights later, and the same Occupiers cried foul when KTLA shut down their broadcast of the cops gathering outside of Dodger Stadium for their pre-raid confab, apparently by the request of the LAPD.

I agree with you, Maggie: journalists have responsibilities as well as protections to consider. And as a professional (although soft) journalist, it distresses me to see how blinded people are as to their own insistence that journalists must skew to their political biases in order to gain legitimacy. There is no doubt in my mind that the LAPD and other political authorities can use access as leverage against honest, unfettered coverage. Yet the emergence of ideological echo chambers in new media is also of great concern. OWS can very easily become the very thing it despises if it becomes too convinced of its own righteousness and hypnotized by its own hype. That, to me, is the dark side of the citizen journalism question: to what degree are we just churning out self-justifying propaganda and choking out dissenting voices within our own ranks?